


a nervous wreck, a broken man

by patriciaselina



Category: Free!
Genre: (sort of), Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Episode Related, Free!-Eternal Summer-, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 05:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2055150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>However; if Nagisa is really, truly, gone – ran away from his family his friends his swim club from <i>Rei himself</i> – then there’s no point in mulling over what the discrepancies between what he wanted to do and what he did, nothing to be gained off it, but an ache in his heart that won’t stop stinging.</p><p>[Mildly angsty introspective narrative based off of the Reigisa in Fr!ES episode 5. On that note, happy birthday, Nagisa Hazuki!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	a nervous wreck, a broken man

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually not as angsty as I make it seem. Title comes from the Maroon 5 song [Runaway](www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzCcgwtvOf0), which I henceforth deem to be the Reigisa song for ES ep 5.
> 
> Again, belated happy birthday Nagisa-kun!!!!!!!! It's 11:39 7/31 my place, haha.

The first thing – the _only_ thing – that comes to mind right now: he cannot lose Nagisa Hazuki.

Not now, not in the next month or year or century, not in a million lifetimes. This is a thing that’s been on his mind for a while now, has probably _always_ been there ever since Nagisa had looked at him on that early summer jog and said _your pole-vaulting was beautiful_ – still the biggest surprise of his entire sixteen-year-old life; nobody’s ever called him beautiful before, especially not a lovely young man with sunshine smiles and eyes worth a hundred thousand stars.

If Rei were any flightier than he seems to be he’d know exactly which word he’d use to refer to this emotion as. In English it’s four letters, equal amounts of vowels and consonants, a single syllable. In Japanese it’s two _kana_ , one _kanji_ , the first character off the name of Rin’s old roommate. But he prefers to think himself a rational person still, even after all this, so he doesn’t dare use it. Not even when he knows full well that to do so would be the closest he’d been to lying.

But, nevertheless.

Rei cannot lose Nagisa for an eternity of reasons, one of which being that without Nagisa train rides have become a bit much too quiet, with less amounts of babble and ice cream and sleep-drool from when Nagisa inevitably plunks out on his conveniently available shoulder. Though Rei would not be adverse to the idea of having to wash out less drool off his uniform shirt, as for everything else…as for everything else, he’s perfectly fine with everything else.

He’s perfectly fine with Nagisa.

So when Haruka-senpai had sent him that text earlier – _Nagisa ran away from home. Thoughts?_ – he hadn’t known at all what he should do or say or feel, only that his legs moved of his own volition, he had barely heard his voice babble a half-coherent explanation in response to his mother’s confused face, and the whole time his heart was running convoluted gymnastics routines in his chest cavity which was most definitely uncalled for because of all the best times for him to want to sob over falling for his best friend, now was not one of them.

Especially since – oh dear heavens _please_ let this be something Rei read wrong – Nagisa is now _gone_ and could be _anywhere_ in the world, anywhere and everywhere, except for the one place where Rei’s subconsciously always wanted him to be, which is to say: two steps to his right, close enough that their fingers faintly brush against each other when they walk. How long had Rei always wanted to just damn decency and his good old friend propriety so he could just cross those last few millimeters and feel the warmth of that hand against his?

However; if Nagisa is really, truly, _gone_ – ran away from his family his friends his swim club from _Rei himself_ – then there’s no point in mulling over what the discrepancies between what he wanted to do and what he did, nothing to be gained off it, but an ache in his heart that won’t stop stinging.

 _But Haruka-senpai won’t be so complacent about something as drastic like that,_ Rei convinces himself, because a wise young blond once told him that _positive thinking is the best way to have a long life, Rei-chan_. So that’s what he does, mostly because fanciful delusions are eons better than mistimed love epiphanies or limb-weakening missing-person hypotheticals. _So maybe Nagisa-kun is just fine. He’s probably just kipping on Haruka-senpai’s futon because he suddenly got a craving for Haruka-senpai’s impressive mackerel dishes._

The train ride to Iwatobi is one-third worrying, one-third willing away the tension in his muscles raring to do something stupid and brainless like jump out a train window and run the whole way, and one-third regretting over every time he didn’t hold Nagisa’s hand or tell him he was beautiful. It’s the worst kind of pain his young mind could think of, but definitely light-years away from the kind of pain he’d just _know_ he’d feel if Nagisa really was gone and never coming back, so.

He promises that, the next time he sees Nagisa, he’ll tell the truth, and nothing _but_ the truth.

That’s the thought that keeps him running through his worry and his self-doubt and his crippling, embarrassing regret, all the way to the Nanase residence – he’ll tell him for sure. Three words, eight letters; one word, five _kana_.

.

.

.

He ends up saying something different, but still, the truth and nothing but the truth. It’s so raw and volatile and the mere act of putting it down to actual spoken words leaves him scrabbling for words. Unable to refer to him directly.

 _I’ll never allow him to leave_ , Rei tells everyone and no one in particular, tells the universe as a coherent whole, because this is the truth and as such is worth telling; because Nagisa Hazuki is the man who single-handedly smashed down all the barriers Rei had been painstakingly building around himself and replaced them with laughter and water and friends, because Nagisa is the only person who’d ever have this much of a hold on him and for Rei to lose him would be too much like losing everything.

Rei can’t help but think: does Nagisa know how much of a hold he has on Rei? Does he know that Nagisa’s words brighten up his day, or that his laughter gives him life, that his belief in him gives Rei strength; that the thought of losing him had almost brought Rei into a half-dazed catatonia? Does Nagisa even have a single clue how much he means to Rei?

For once in Rei’s life, words fail him. He can’t ask any of these things. But when he looks back at Nagisa, in that single second, a drop in time’s endless wellspring – there’s a faint flush dusting his pale cheeks, a presumable response to Rei’s half-mumbled words, and Rei likes to think it’s for the best.

Likes to think that his feelings aren’t too covert after all.


End file.
